


Synergy Crisis

by Overlord_Mordax, VickytheSnake



Category: Jem and the Holograms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Body Modification, F/F, F/M, Partial Mind Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 13:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Mordax/pseuds/Overlord_Mordax, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VickytheSnake/pseuds/VickytheSnake
Summary: The Holograms, the Misfits, Synergy and the rest take on a darker and stranger edge in this gritty cyberpunk reimagining of Jem and the Holograms.In a dark future of smog and technology Emmet Benton created Synergy software to help man interface with machine. But after Emmet's untimely death his daughter Jerrica makes a deal with his former business partner. Now she'll undergo her late father's experimental augmentation process for the purposes of finding his killer and avenging his death. Young Jerrica Benton becomes a popstar and a killing machine in one night, and it can't help but tear her psyche apart.





	Synergy Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> Currently a little rough around the edges/raw. Its basically rp logs with the tags stripped and run through spell/grammar check. Will be updated eventually.

The world was darker in America in 2085. The last of the old oil and coal barons had clashed with the battle against climate change and the result was a sky almost permanently overcast, thick with yes, mist and smog, but also the new chemicals they were pumping into the clouds to keep the earth warm and hopefully purify the rain. They said if the science didn't keep up, they'd be facing an ice age in the next two centuries.

Below, the world now relied on a combination of nuclear and chemically created energy to power its ever-increasing lust for light and technology. Corporate headquarters soared through the sky like knives lit by bright leds, and tenements squatted, graffitied in glowing paint and piss, and chemical trash. Democracy had fallen decades ago, with the smiling face and reassuring hand of the free market replacing it, a seething, hissing hydra of Corporatocracy. Health Care brought to you by Coca Cola!

The elderly decried the changes as the fall of man, but the rich, the elite, assured everyone that life went on. Bread and circuses was the policy of the day. Everywhere you looked a new entertainment, a new distraction. Even a street rat who couldn’t feed herself could scrounge up the money for a cell to watch the latest bright stars rise and fall. The corporations counted on this bright misdirection to keep the young, the brilliant and the disenfranchised from rising up and tipping the scales. In many cases, it was enough.  
Some people were even lucky enough to be sheltered from the reality of it all. The more money you had, the more privilege to ignore the darkness, the poverty and injustice , and to wrap yourself in bright lights, glamor and glitter. For some, it wasn't even a choice, just the way they had been raised.

Jerrica Benton, born in the mid-sixties, had never lived in an America that had a president instead of a CEO, nor had she ever had to walk through a neighborhood where young mothers sold blood plasma monthly to pay their electricity bills. She was the daughter of an eminent scientist, and founder of one of the larger new media production corporations on the west coast. The science, her father had always said, was the goal, but the celebrity paid the bills. Her father was a kind, charitable man who wanted to use his inventions to ease the burden of the poor and he had tried to impart his values on his daughters.

But still, both Jerrica and her sister Kimber had attended expensive private schools in the Hollywood hills, and grew up in a world where you threw out clothes you had worn twice in order to make room for the new season's fashions. They grew up in a world where you came home to a private penthouse on the 40th floor, where the flat screened window was saved to an image of the golden Bahamas, and the help had already left dinner in the oven.

And that was what Jerrica was meant to come home to, a night in her 19th year, after a day of doing volunteer work as an organizer for one of her father's charities. A night like any other, her umbrella slick with rain, dripping as she walked into the mood-lit condo.

She shook off the umbrella at the door, and placed it in its precise place on the rack just inside. Her spirits were high, as they often were when she worked with charity. Tonight was especially wonderful as she rarely actually got to see the underprivileged youth her volunteer work focused on as opposed to simply organizing different meets and events for them.

She'd gotten to teach a group of sweet young girls out of what she was told to be one of the poorer districts in the city how to sing.

She walked eagerly into the softly lit condo with a bright smile on her pink-glossed lips "Father! I'm home!"

No one answered. Not that surprising. Her daddy was probably working late in his lab down the hall on some new miracle.

She laughed, a soft and light little chuckle as she kicked her shoes off, and walked into the kitchen with the intention of bringing one of the meals the help had prepared down to her father before he worked himself into exhaustion! She loved her daddy, but... he was the type of genius you always saw in the movies. Brilliant, but scatterbrained!

There was a meal in the oven, waiting. But it was when she entered the bright, shiny chrome kitchen that she smelled a strange, metallic scent in the air.

Jerrica's nose scrunched up in response, and she brushed her short blond hair over her ear. "Well that's strange...." She picked up the meal, carefully, and followed her nose "Did the help burn something?" Her soft footsteps echoed all too loudly in the stillness of the apartment.

The hall was quiet, and dim as she walked past her room, and Kimber's and further down the hall to the door of her father's lab. An unusual site, it was partially open.

Jerrica's footsteps faltered slightly, the pitter pat of her feet slowing to an uncertain shuffle. "Daddy?" She called down the open door. She usually had to balance the plate while she got the door open....

The smell was more potent here as she approached. There was still no answer.

She covered her nose as she eased the door further open with her foot. Her heart pounded, almost audible in the silent apartment. She started walking down the stairs, holding the plate "Daddy, I know you're probably busy, but I... I have your dinner" She called, feeling her voice hitch as it usually only did up on stage in front of dozens of staring eyes.

Jerrica could feel something was wrong. Maybe it was how silent the lab was. It was never quiet when her father was working. As she came down the stairs, she saw the edge of her father's rolling chair.

Jerrica Benton's steps grew panicked, and she burst into her father's lab with the strained edges of her hope in a weak smile on her face. "Daddy, Did you....fall asleep...?"

Hope died. Hope died with two bullets professionally placed in the back of the skull, slumped backward in a rolling chair in a sight that would haunt its viewer for decades to come.

The uneaten meal fell to the floor from trembling fingers. A young woman's scream went unheard up within the mist and smog. Jerrica Benton's tears joined her father's blood as a hysterical girl who'd never seen violence or pain was introduced in one life shattering instant. No matter how much she shook him, pleaded, or sobbed.... her father was dead.

Starlight Media's security cars were there soon, flashing lights surrounding the tall building, a severe woman in a sleek uniform looking tired as she tried to console the teenager. They ended up taking Jerrica to the hospital, where the doctors sedated hysteria into numbness and brought in an expensive psychologist who would bill the estate.

For a while she was like the city itself. The terror, pain and despair inside her muffled under a fog of chemicals and psychiatric 'help' . But it was as the fog cleared, that hysteria began to melt into a new feeling. One the sweet-tempered Jerrica hardly ever felt. Anger. Anger and Despair.

Her numbly honest replies to her psychologist changed to putting on a mask. Pretending to recover while under their watchful eyes.

It was her father's business partner who came to get her, days later, in the hospital that was disguised as a relaxation spa. He was dressed in black, his hair slicked back from his temples, though if it was greying there it was expertly dyed. He had bullied his way past several doctors, it seemed.

Even through her placid mask and hidden pain, she had to smile sadly at the man. She'd grown up knowing Eric Raymond. Listening to his stories. Sharing ideas with him. He...and the memory of her dead mother... was the reason Jerrica had pursued her love of music. To impress him. All because of a silly childhood crush.

So seeing him here, dressed in mourning black just as she was...she couldn't hide her feelings. She wasn't able to stop the tears.

Eric didn't say anything before putting his arms around the mourning young woman that he'd known as a little girl. He let her cry, petting her hair with large hands, lotion smooth and expertly manicured.

She'd sobbed into his shoulder, letting it all out. All the tears. All the nightmares she'd been plagued with since her drug regimen was softened. All the sobbing unanswered questions about why. WHY would anyone do this. why would anyone kill her father? He was a good man.... why she and her sister were left all alone.

She even told him about...that alien demon clawing at the back of her head, weighing her down. Anger. Vengeance.

He'd listened to it all, taking her away from the hospital in his sleek, black sedan, hand on her shoulder to steady her. Taken her back to his high-rise downtown- she wouldn’t want to go back in the house, not after that. Not even with everything professionally cleaned and in order. And she wouldn't want to be alone- Kimber was still in transit, trying to get back from the school break vacation she'd been on down in Mexico.

She needed the presence of someone else....far away from the home she'd never be able to enter without the phantom scent of blood driving her panic into a fever pitch. So, she'd let Eric Raymond take her to his home. To the high-rise. There, she dropped the mask she'd formed for the psychologists and doctors. The once bright and radiant Jerrica, always ready with a smile or an attempt to help, had fallen into a depression. Depression mingled with thoughts of vengeance. Fantasies of finding her daddy's murderers and ...and ...

It was around then that her thoughts turned into another bout of crying.

The funeral came and went in a blur. Eric had arranged it. It was huge, and so many people were there. Her father had known so many people... She saw Kimber there, for the first time since... Kimber was staying with friends. She wrapped her arms around her sister and cried.

She cried with her sister. Held her. Tried to reassure the younger girl that things would be okay. Even if she didn't believe it herself. They mourned their father together, surrounded by strangers. A beautiful Frenchwoman in black, wearing a broach in the shape of a crown had given them personal condolences for the loss of such a good man.

In the wake of the funeral, the numb misery returned. The whole world became a blur.

Their father's will and testament was still in the hands of his lawyers.

Eric kept a careful eye on her while they both waited through the probate period. He made sure that she ate, but he didn't try to force her to get dressed or interact with anyone. He let her know when her sister called, but didn't force her to call back.

Sometimes...sometimes she would talk to her sister. Long, sad conversations where they both attempted to console one another, and nobody ever felt any better.  
But that was it. Jerrica Benton kept herself locked away in Eric's home, wearing only her pajamas. She'd spend long nights...writing in on her tablet. Updating her diary. Reluctantly eating but mostly sleeping.

Lots of sleeping. Even if Eric found her sitting bolt upright some nights, screaming under the grip of night terrors.

Eric sat with her a long time on those nights, waiting for her to fall back asleep. Watching her while she slept.

Finally after a month, the lawyers had the contents of the will for them. The money, the houses, and his stock and interest in Starlight Media were Jerrica's. Kimber had a significant trust, to be managed by her sister until she was 21. He had left his patents and scientific work to his business partner.

Surprisingly, among the other charitable donations her father had left, there were two other significant trusts, in the names of girls called Aja and Shana. These, to Jerrica's surprise were children who had been born of affairs shortly after Jerrica's mother's death. Eric explained that he had known they existed, but her father had sworn him to secrecy, not wanting to disrupt the girls’ lives.

Jerrica's first reaction was shock. They'd had half-sisters this whole time....and neither her father nor her family friend saw fit to tell them? She'd looked from the lawyer to Eric with an incredulous look. Feelings warred within her through the fog of activity. Anger at her father for cheating on their dead mother, guilt for being angry at both her loving father whom she'd never see again, and the man who'd done so much for her in the wake of his death. Curiosity about this family she'd never known. Fear. and Duty....

Somberly, Jerrica accepted the terms of the will. She would own the company, the houses, the stock, the money. She'd look out for her sister's interests and wellbeing. Perhaps someday she'd even meet these half-sisters of hers.

But right now, all she could do was accept.

Accept and dream of vengeance. Through the somber haze of the meeting, there was always that dream playing in the back of her mind.

Meanwhile Starlight Security was doing their best, over the last month to track down their founder's killer. They had leads, plenty of leads, unfortunately a lot of them led to places they had a hard time investigating further, at least on the surface. Places like Silicon MetaDynamics, one of the three most powerful tech companies on the west coast.

Jerrica's numb depression began taking on more shades of her anger. In private, the young woman despaired to Eric. Why couldn't they just confront them if they knew they did it? If Security thought that Silicon MetaDynamics was behind it, why don't they do something! That was one such frustrated question in a sea of desperate pleas.

Eric was patient with her, explaining that there were politics involved. Of course, they'd get to the bottom of the murder, but they had to go through the right channels, or MetaDynamics would bring a tribuneral against them for improper conduct. There was only so much that could be done, and remain on the right side of the law.

That was when little Jerrica said something surprising. She'd scowled, an expression that didn't fit on her pretty, kindhearted face, and asked him that if the law wasn't bringing justice, then what was it good for? Her daddy believed in justice for all people! And now the Law was failing him!

"Of course, Jerrica, of course," Eric said in his warm, soothing voice, "you know that I want your father's killer to face justice. Hell, I'd like to see the whole of Silicon MetaDynamics go down for this. But it’s a house of cards. Without the right kind of evidence, we have to move through certain channels. It’s not as if we can just.... storm in there and interrogate people."

Jerrica had tears in her pale blue eyes, leaking down over her pale cheeks in rivulets. Her tears followed the lines on her face, around her scowling lips and over her shaking chin "W-Why can't we?" She asked, misery causing her sweet voice to crack. "Why can't we just--just go right to the top! I own Starlight Corp!"

He mopped up her tears with a pocket handkerchief. "God, I wish it worked like that, Jerrica. But I've tried to negotiate- the heads of MetaDynamics are staying completely silent on this. They refuse to even acknowledge our claim unless we can prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt- and in their eyes, there's probably no way to do that."

Jerrica sniffed, breathing in sharp, jagged breaths meant to stop her from falling into another round of crying. "But if we can't....can't prove it to them..." She whispered desperately ""It's like all the music in the world died at once...Daddy will never have justice. And... I can't live in a world where dad's killers just.... just walk free!"

She wiped her dried eyes with the back of her slender hand

Eric put his arm around her. "I know, Jerrica. And I promise, I'll keep fighting this. I have a lead on the man who is said to have held the gun. If we can get him to talk, we should have an in."

Jerrica leaned against him, her face pressed to the expensive material of his suit's shoulder. She sniffled softly "Eric..." she said "I just wish there was something I could do. I feel so...so useless " she whispered "But I can't face the world knowing that...that dad's killers...are out there. It's like.... It feels like" she stammered "like when I'm up on the stage, and everyone's looking at me. But all the time. Even when I'm alone."

He pet her back gently and nodded. "I understand, Jerrica. I wish there was something you could do. But I think the best you can do now would be to learn to steer the company. Meanwhile I’ll have my top people on this assassin."

Jerrica hesitated "I... I’ll of course steer the company. Father wanted that after all." She sighed, looking away. But vengeance clawed at the back of her mind. It whispered, and her eyes went wide as an idea came to her.

It wasn't as if someone could just...infiltrate MetaDynamics. right? Someone dead set on finding proof. On stopping them?

She blurted out "what if I infiltrated MetaDynamics? I... I could get proof! I... I can avenge Daddy, Eric! I... well...our family. Kimber...you...we're the only people who care enough to stop them, right?"

Eric looked at her incredulously. "Jerrica, you can't be serious. You're a very beautiful- and talented- young woman, but you can't just go chasing down assassins...."

Jerrica clasped her hands together "Eric, I have to. You said yourself! no amount of proof will ever bring them to justice!" She looked at him with wide blue eyes "I... Eric, please..."

"Jerrica...."he narrowed his eyes, looking her over. "I can't just have an unarmed teenage girl go out as some kind of vigilante. And the daughter of my best friend. How could I live with myself if you got hurt?"

Jerrica's eyes started to bead with tears once more. But her jaw was set in a determined frown "Eric. I... I’m going to do this" She'd become set on it. The ideas were already coming. Ideas of grand and glorious revenge. Of justice for her father. "I... I’d like your help. But even if you refuse that, I'm going anyway. Someone has to do something Eric!"

Jerrica...was not very physically imposing. She was a shade shorter than average height, with narrow shoulders and a slim figure that tapered down long limbs. She wore a pair of blue and white vertical striped pajamas that hid most of that figure from view. She had a pretty, sweet face, with bright blue eyes and bow shaped lips. Her bobbed, golden-blond hair was unkempt today...given how depressed she'd been, she didn't bother to comb it.

"Is there any way I can stop you from doing this, Jerrica?" The older man asked, the wheels in his mind turning even as she spoke.

She shook her head vehemently "no, Eric." She said, determination in her voice "I... I'll never be able to face the world again if I know father hasn't been avenged. I'm doing this. Even if I have to march right up to their CEO and....and finish this"

He sighed, putting his hands behind his back. "In that case, Jerrica... I have something your father left that might help you."

Jerrica's crystal-blue eyes went wide "W-what? You do, Eric?" She stepped forward, her hands clasped together "Please, tell me!"

"I don't know that you'll believe me if I tell you," he said, straightening his cuffs as he looked down at her. "But I'll show you. It’s still in your father's lab- I haven't had the equipment moved yet."

Jerrica's lips formed a smile for the first time that day. A bright smile that lit up her face like a thousand suns. Her pink lips parted over white teeth. "Thank you, Eric!" She embraced her longtime family friend.

He pet her hair, a small smile forming over his own lips as well, unseen.

0000000000000000000000000000000

Eric opened the door to the condo. Jerrica hadn't been there since the night IT had happened, but Eric had had it kept clean and had been in and out. The window screens were turned off, and the lights only came on as they approached.

Even so, Jerrica tensed visibly the moment they set foot before the door. Her body froze...and for the moment she was too terrified to cross the threshold into her family condo.

Eric reached out and steadied her. Such a delicate girl. "Easy there."

She looked up at him, her eyes pinpricked in her panic "Can I hold your hand?" She managed to whisper.

"Of course," he nodded, offering it to her. She was so vulnerable like this. She had been since her father's death> which of course, was why he had swooped in to .... shelter her.

She took his hand, and a few grounding breaths. Her eyes slowly dilated, and her breath became more even as she calmed herself. She looked up at him with a weak smile, and stepped through the door, holding his hand tight.

He held her hand tightly, leaning close as they walked through the hall of her former home, past her bedroom- where he hesitated just a moment.

She hesitated with him, looking at the closed door of her bedroom. It .... even at her age it was still decorated with the trappings of her childhood. A 'movie star'-esque star labeled 'Jerrica Benton: Changing Room' with day glow stickers of musical notes surrounding it.

She flushed, and looked away, her hand shaking.

He nodded, and led her further down the hall, to the closed, locked room that had once been her father's lab. He raised his hand, and pressed it against the scanner. The door opened softly.

Jerrica squeezed his hand, her breath starting to quicken once more. She wanted to get past this. To go into her bedroom and take possession of all the memories locked inside. But she was so scared.

Her eyes glanced down the stairs, as she waited for his lead.

Eric Raymond led her down the stairs, his hand still in hers, the tall man's eyes hidden behind the pair of glasses he used for driving and reading small print.

The lights came on in the windowless lab as they entered. The rolling chair was gone as was every one of its like. Eric had replaced them with metal chairs.

Jerrica walked a little closer to the tall man. She trusted him, and that trust was obvious in her wide blue eyes. She'd begun shaking "you...changed some things" She whispered.

"I didn't think anyone needed to see those chairs in here again," he said. Aside from that change, most of the lab was the same, still strung with fireproof chemical lights like long glow sticks overhead. There were screens, and machines Jerrica had no name for, giant tubes and what seemed to be medical equipment. It was her father's lab alright.

"If I never see another one of those chairs, I... I won't complain" She said with a small, timid smile "Which of these machines is the one you're going to show me?" She asked, gesturing around the lab.

He led her toward the back of the lab, to a great mass of machinery. A huge pod, surrounded by other boxed in machines; all connected by tubes and cords, with screens and read outs.

"This," he said. "This is what your father was working on when he died. The Synergy Central System."

Jerrica's eyes went wide, flicking over the pod and all its connected machines and screens "Synergy Central System? " she asked in surprise. "What is it? He never mentioned that name to me."

"It was his most secret project," Eric said, pulling over a chair and sitting down backwards on it. "a harmonization of biology and software that would allow the human body to be advanced, upgraded and maintained like, and with, machinery."

Jerrica placed her hand on the outside of the pod "It's his..final creation" her voice hitched in her throat "It....it allows people to.... meld with machinery? Or...or be...advanced? How...how is that even possible, Eric?"

"With Synergy," he said, tapping the console so that a screen lit up. "A nano-based Artificial Intelligence that bonds with the nervous system and can make repairs and rebalance human biochemistry in real time."

She gasped "An AI?" She leaned close to the screen, her head cocking "Like Crown Versailles Robotics have as their lobby secretary?"

"I'm much more advanced than that, Jerrica," a droning, synthesized woman's voice said, as a pair of lips appeared on the monitor.  
Eric smirked, and waved a hand. "Jerrica, meet Synergy."

Jerrica gasped, her hand covering her mouth as she startled backwards "Oh!!!" she yelped "You know my name!" She swallowed, and watched the lips move on the screen "I... I’m sorry. It’s....it's n-nice to meet you, Synergy" she said once she composed herself.

"It’s nice to meet you, Jerrica. I can see you be reading your weight and heat signature, and the moisture content of your breath. Your profile is associated with Jerrica Benton, daughter of my creator, Emmet Benton."

The girl's hand was still over her mouth, surprise in her eyes "Th... that’s me... I ...I know daddy was smart, but...." She hesitantly touched the screen again "wow! you can really interface people with...with machines?"

The screen was warm, and lit up as her fingers touched it- displaying an image of her hand, and then a photo of her from her high school photo shoot, along with her vital statistics.

"I can."

Eric smiled. "Synergy is so advanced that it can know what your body is about to do before its done it. Once Synergy is tested and implemented, no one would have to have a heart attack, or an aneurysm, if they had synergy installed. Not only that but even without extra modifications, Synergy can boost your metabolism, increase strength and speed for short periods of time, heighten vision and hearing...."

Jerrica gasped again, and looked delighted "Synergy is a miracle!" She said with the first genuine enthusiasm she'd shown since he agreed to help her. "She...she can save so many lives.... she can stop people from ...." She faltered "From...dying" She swallowed, looking down "and....and... make us better humans." The enthusiasm faltered. Synergy hadn't saved her father, after all.

Eric put a hand on her back. "She will be able to, hopefully," he said. "Your father did amazing work. And with it, it’s possible you could achieve justice for him."

That reinvigorated her. She looked at Synergy, her eyes bright with determination "Synergy. could you help me become...? b-better? So I can avenge our father's death?" She asked the machine "He...He created you. And now he's gone because of...of MetaDynamics!"

"I can help you, Jerrica," Synergy said. "I can be used to make you stronger, faster. To enhance your bones and your muscles. I can be whatever you need."

Jerrica swallowed, nervous but...this was her big shot "Then I want you, Synergy. I... I want you to make me strong enough to stop them. To...To avenge Dad. I don't care what it takes."

Eric put her hand on her. "Jerrica, it is a serious procedure. I want you to be sure of this."

Jerrica looked up at Eric "I. I’m sure of it" she said. "I can't just let this end" she smiled at him "B-besides. It's dad's technology and you're .... you’re showing it to me. It can't be so bad, can it?"

"Of course not," he purred, his hand on her wrist, glasses slipped down on his nose. "But I don't want you to look back and feel like you were pushed into this,."

She turned her hand around, and took his fingers in her delicate hands. Looking up at him, she faintly smiled "I wasn't, Eric" She said in a shaking voice "I have to do this. Dad...I can't let his death be for nothing. If....if I avenge him, and this process works on me...we can start using Synergy to save lives, can't we?"

"It'll absolutely be a huge kickstart for Synergy," he said. he put an arm around her. "If you're sure about this, Jerrica, then I won't stop you."

Jerrica flushed, and leaned into his arm. "I’m sure about this, Eric. I've never been more sure of anything else." She leaned her head against him "After this works.... I’ll help organize the development of Synergy for the masses" She smiled nervously "As acting head of Starlight Corp"

He stroked her hair and nodded. "Then we shouldn't waste any time. we can start the procedure tonight, if you're ready."

Jerrica nodded, leaning into his touch "I want to start tonight. I'm ready" She took a deep breath "Synergy...?" She called to the machine.

"Yes, Jerrica?" the female voice responded'

"It..." She stammered, before clearing her throat "It's Showtime."

0000000

There was a part of Eric Raymond's scheming, multifaceted mind that couldn't believe his luck. Jerrica Benton. The daughter of his late partner. He girl he'd wanted to get his hands on before her 15th birthday was about to be entirely within his power.

Synergy. Synergy was a marvel. The AI technology could do everything he had claimed it could, and more, there was no doubt about that. After all, Eric knew genius when he saw it, and Emmet had been a genius. But even with that genius, he hadn't been able to solve all the bugs in the system before he’d died.

Or maybe Emmet hadn't even seen it as a bug. He always had been a naive fool. Maybe he didn't believe that someone would exploit Synergy's design to let them input commands into a host's mind possibly without them even knowing it had been done.

But that design, flaw or feature, was one that anyone who had Synergy installed in them would be stuck with. Including Jerrica. And Eric had some wonderful ideas about what to do with that.

He stood up as Jerrica spoke to the AI. Showtime. It certainly was.

"You'll have to take off your clothes, I'm afraid," he coughed politely.

Jerrica's pale cheeks flushed red at that "w-what?" She asked "I...I can't go in my clothes?" She gestured to the simple and plain white and blue striped dress she wore.

it matched her pajamas back home.

Synergy answered before Eric could. "You will be fully submerged, Jerrica. And I will need access to your entire dermis."  
Eric waved his hand. "What the lady said."

Jerrica bit her lip, chewing on it nervously. But....

She was willing to subject herself to untested technology to avenger her father. She supposed she could take a little embarrassment at denuding in front of the man a younger her had a crush on.

She slowly slipped out of the dress, and removed her bra and panties. She immediately covered herself with her arms

Eric appeared to shade his view politely, while failing entirely to actually do so, instead watching her undress with an internal smirk. He'd seen her naked a few times this month without her knowing, when he'd chanced to catch her coming out of the shower.

It was a good view. Jerrica was a lithe little thing, with B-cup breasts topped in cute pink nipples, and slight hips that lead into long, elegant legs. Currently though, most of that was hidden by her shaking arms "w-where do...do I go?" she asked

The great tube in the center opened with a hiss, and expelled a little steam.

"In here, Jerrica," Synergy said.

Jerrica hesitated again, her pale and narrow shoulders shaking as she stepped forward. "O-okay" she finally said

She mistakenly gave a good view of her cute round ass as she attempted to climb into the tube.

His lip twitched into a smirk, seeing it. "Don't worry, Jerrica, I'll be right here the whole time."

The tube was angled gently, perfect for her to step into, and lay down as if it were a bed.

She slipped inside, and settled down into it just like that. As if it was a strange sort of bed. She smiled at him before she lay back "Thank you Eric...I don't know what I'd do without you, these last few weeks"

"You know I'll always watch out for you," he said. The tube hissed closed, and Synergy's image appeared on a small screen inside it.

"ready to begin procedure. Subject, Jerrica Benton."

Eric pulled himself up to the control panel. It was time to get to work.

Jerrica smiled faintly at the screen before her eyes "Hello Synergy." She asked softly "this won't hurt, will it?"

"The initial injection may sting somewhere," Synergy said. "but afterward you will be dosed with a drug that will put you under for the rest of the procedure."

Jerrica nodded slightly "then...then I look forward to, ah, w-working with you, Synergy." she lay back on the 'bed' with a deep breath "You're going to be part of me, now"

"It will be a pleasure, Jerrica," Synergy said. A small breathing mask descended from the tube, and pressed gently to her mouth and nose.

At the controls, Eric was smiling as he entered commands. Of course, he should enhance her appearance as well as all the other things. Why not?

Jerrica was shaking in the pod, but she took several deep breaths from the breathing mask. She had to relax. When she came out of this.... she’d be stronger. Better...able to stop those corrupt and wicked enough to have killed a good man like her father.

A warm, syrupy liquid started seeping into the pod from the bottom, covering her legs, and creeping up her body.

"everything's alright, Jerrica," Synergy said soothingly. "I can feel your heartbeat is elevating, are you nervous? would you like to stop the procedure?"

Jerrica's toes curled in the fluid, and her breath hissed rapidly through the breathing tube. But...she shook her head. She could hear her heart hammering in her ears, even as she whispered "no... No... I am nervous, Synergy" she admitted shakily "but...but ...while I'm scared, I know this is something I have to do..."

"You'll be sedated soon, Jerrica," Synergy promised as the fluid crawled up her body, and over the line of her mouth and nose. To her surprise, it didn’t' affect her vision at all, nor did it feel strange against her open eyes.

She blinked in the strange liquid, her eyes wide open and not stinging at all. "thank you" she whispered. "I trust Eric and you..."

She felt something cold, and metal press against the base of her spine. "Preparing initial injection, Jerrica."

Jerrica stiffened, but squeezed her eyes shut "r-ready Synergy!" she squeaked through the breathing tube.

Eric was watching her from his vantage point at the console, her body displayed for him on the screen as he put the finishing touches on her program.

"Showtime," he muttered.

The injection stung. It stung like a bad pinch, like when Jerrica was a kid, and her sister Kimber was mad at her and would pinch her hard under the table...

She winced, and made a sharp sound of surprise as the pinch of the needle stabbed into her spine. She had a brief moment where she felt...guilty...that she didn't tell Kimber about any of this.

She didn’t have long to feel guilty about it. She heard Synergy say. "Injection complete. Introducing sedative."

Something tasted sweet in her breathing mask.

Jerrica's lips parted, and she breathed in the strange sweet air. Her eyes opened only halfway, focused on Synergy's image before her.

The image went hazy and so did her thinking as she lost touch with her body, and her vision faded.

Jerrica, the sweet taste of the sedative on her lips, surrendered herself to sedation.

Maybe the sedation never fully put out her optic nerves, or maybe Jerrica just had too good an imagination, but whichever it was, she would later see in her mind flashes of the process. There was no pain associated with the memories, but pain isn't always necessary for horror.

There was an image of her arms, floating in front of her, dethatched, as long metallic needles shot into them, delivering some kind of payload deep into the bone.

The image of great, long needles at the end of blocky, wire and diode covered machines coming right at her eyes.

At some point she saw her head, chest, stomach and legs all in different segments as machine arms clever knit technology into them. She saw light burst from her toes.

The reflection in the curve of the glass of a great web or wing like structure of robotics joining into her back. Something pressing to the base of her skull. The sound of a drill.

Those sights and sounds would come to her in the night from then on. Or when she was alone and allowing her mind to wander.  
Strange, confusing images and sounds. As if her entire body was reconstructed before her paralyzed senses.

Eric, of course, saw all of it. In between cups of coffee, phone calls about minor matters at Starlight Media, and games of Tetris on his cell. He watched over the many hours as Jerrica's body was torn apart and reconstructed in his own design. What would her father think?

The procedure took upwards of 20 hours, and Jerrica was sedated for five hours more than that. Her vitals were good, and everything had healed up without scarring. Eric took the opportunity for a little bit of sleep, and a shower, and finally, another cup of coffee. He tapped his watch- just a little more than an entire day had passed.


End file.
